News Story
One of our former members, long-time fire-fighter and veteran fire investigator, Ray Coleman, has retired after 42 years in the fire service. Actuallly it's 43 years-plus, if the time is counted that he spent as a member of our unit, then the Auckland Volunteer Fire Police Corps. Ray was a member in 1970, holding Constable's Warrant Card Number 20, turning out from his home in Avondale. After joining the fire service full-time and years of operational fire-fighting, he specialised in fire safety and prevention. In 1991 Ray collaborated with psychiatrists to inaugurate a ground-breaking programme to provide a formal intervention service for young people involved in fire-setting and inappropriate fire-play. This became today's successful, nation-wide, Fire Awareness and Intervention Programme (FAIP). Ray won a scholarship to further study juvenile fire-setting on a visit to the USA and in 2004 he received the Queen's Service Medal in the Queen's Birthday Royal Honours list.
